


To You, from the constellations

by hinatella



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, Astral Sorcery, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slow Burn, earth doesn't exist in this story because the humans killed it rip, mostly fictional settings, sad childhoods
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 01:24:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15353157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hinatella/pseuds/hinatella
Summary: Yuuri Katsuki was born to reach for the stars, but he was also born with a magical gift that hinders him from achieving that dream. For better or for worse, and in under less than desirable circumstances, Captain Viktor Nikiforov helps him get there.





	To You, from the constellations

Yuuri was born into this world with its dim, dim atmosphere and its two moons who love each other so fondly, and his very first word was “Ta”.

She was so goddamn confused at first, his mother Hiroko always tells him. The entire family was. His father was hopeful, optimistic, so sure it was just babbling baby talk for dad and mom mixed into one. “Because you were so considerate even then,” Toshiya says. “You didn’t want to hurt either of us by favoring one word over the other.”

But that positive outlook came crashing down around his parents’ ears like a meteorite straight to the chest when Mari, his big, bright sister, figured it out. Teeny tiny Yuuri only excitedly uttered that one broken word when he was outside, when the twenty hour day shifted to night, when the stars were hung up in the sky like the fairy lights in her room.

“Dad.” A gasp. “He’s saying _star_.”

And it was true. It became woefully apparent to them when, some time later, he acquired the ability to speak his _s_ ’s and _r_ ’s with practiced clarity, once he gained more control over the awkwardness of his tongue. Yuuri loved the stars so much they had the privilege of being his first words.

Yuuri loved them. _Adored_ them. Chalked it up to the paraphernalia and accessories littering their home like the stars themselves littered the sky. His family owned a combination potions-and-book shop, and their flat resided right above it, two stories high and filled with arcane secrets too big for Yuuri’s tiny mind. The references were everywhere: in the peeling wallpaper hugging the walls, in the throw pillows strewn around the living room, and in the night sky petunias rising up to touch in the ceiling in little pots that Mari and Yuuri painted themselves. His family contributed to this, his little star-obsessed hysteria that began the day he popped into existence, and they only have themselves to blame for Yuuri’s first stolen words.

He decorated his childhood home with them, picked up every five-six-seven pointed star he could get his hands on and placed them, scattered, around his room; begged his parents to give him one of those fancy glow-in-the-dark holograms that all of the other kids had so the night would be embellished along his ceiling. He had a plushie, even. Yellow with deep orange holes for eyes that his tiny baby mouth with its tiny baby words nammed _Tarry_. He learned to say his _s_ ’s soon after, but the juvenile name stuck like glue.

Hiroko didn’t mind in the slightest, of course. She’d always been Yuuri’s number one supporter. So when Yuuri let her know he plans to reach for the stars and grasp them in his bare hands, she silently cheered him on, told him that he absolutely can do it if he wished hard enough on the comets that streak across the nighttime sky. 

Mari, though, with her small head filled with big ideas, with her otherworldly desire to fill this universe with as much magic as possible, to travel and collect stardust and sprinkle it on every planet her fingers touch, thought it was a little bit of a far fetched dream. 

_I mean_ , she’d say, _haven’t you heard the old Earthling’s tale of Icarus?_

Yuuri didn’t care, however. He never, not once, gave a damn. With his fingertips alight with the stars themselves, he’d reach for them, touch them, hear exactly what they have to say. He’d listen to their ancient star language and hold tight to their ancient star secrets. He was born for this, he knew it. 

Sometimes, when the night was quiet enough that the hum of the galaxy was an orchestra in his ears, he’d hear the stars sing. He asked his sister about it once, and she looked at him like he told her that water was raining down like tears from the sky.

He heard the stars sing. And that’s when he knew.

✂ 

His parents always said that the magical powers that humans have possessed since the beginning of time were a gift.

And Yuuri used to agree, at first, marvelled at the way Mari used to wield her powers of movement like they were second nature, the way she’d come home with stars in her eyes and magic on her lips as she muttered beautiful whispers that allowed flowers to bloom in the wake of her words. She could make the books and pots in the store shift without a finger, had the ability to make her bed without batting an eye. 

Yuuri thought it was something monumental. _He_ wants to make house chores that easy, too. He can’t wait to get his gift.

But then his gift appears, and it’s disastrous.

It happens in a classroom, which is the worst possible way that it could happen, because there’s eyes, everywhere. All over him, picking him apart with radioactive nails and searing his thin skin. He doesn’t want to be there, suddenly. He’s both too big for his body, like this small classroom isn’t enough to contain him, and yet tiny all the same time, because their gazes are still on him.

Yuuri peers at the faces of all his nameless classmates and chokes. He imagines callous words that are sharp like blades, cutting through his ribcage, straight to his lungs, and leaving him breathless in the worst way. Imagines their whispers are fangs that take his throat prisoner. Imagines the world shaking under the pressure of all those glares and it’s _too much, too much, too much_ until—

With a snap, he’s not imagining things anymore.

It’s like a solar storm breaks through the room and rips it apart and claws its way through the tables and shelves and chairs. Later, Yuuri remembers hearing nothing but howling, howling that feels so far away it makes him feel like his body is submerged in water, thick glass over his ears, head on a different plane entirely. 

The room is an absolute wreck in the end. His classmates look at him like he’s growing space poppies on his head instead of hair. And that’s when Yuuri makes the startling realization:

_Chaos magic._

Made for destruction.

Something so, so rare it’s only a miniscule blurb in their textbooks, and Yuuri, at the tender age of eight, finds out that _he_ has it.

His parents think it’s a gift, but he sorely begs to differ.

✂

Yuuri is washing moondust from his hands when he hears the chimes of his Sellar-Line in his ear. He grabs a towel as he glances at the time—it’s nearing dusk over here. The suns in Phichit’s system must be burning bright at the apex of his skies right now.

When his hands are finally dried off, he plops down on his bed, bounces on the springs, and lightly taps on the receiver in his ear. The blue-green screen that pops up in front of him is a familiar sight by now, as are the bright, shimmering eyes and wider-than-the-universe smile on his best friend’s face. 

He met Phichit several cycles ago, when he came to Yuuri’s planet to help with his dad’s work relocating. Yuuri felt so young and naive then, at age fifteen, where the world seems a touch bleak, a perpetual eclipse casting over his hopes and dreams. He was bullied so much in school because of his magical _curse_ that he begged to be taken away and shot directly into the atmosphere. Let his remains scatter in the green oceans of Seiloste, across the purple sand beaches that hug them. 

But no. His parents, unfortunately, took mercy on him. They decided that he would be homeschooled instead.

Yuuri looks at Phichit’s grin, and he’s reminded of the summer they came into contact, when Phichit’s eyes shone brighter than the twin moons overhead; they were glowing. His laugh was effervescent. Yuuri had never seen anyone like him before. Phichit got lost in Seiloste’s sprawling roads, yet he grabbed at Yuuri’s wrist and paraded around the area like Yuuri was a tourist on his own planet.

Phichit gives him an excited chirp of a greeting, and Yuuri doesn’t have to say anything to him before his smile promptly drops to that pout that means he knows exactly what’s going on. It feels like he always does.

“What’s wrong?”

Yuuri shrugs his shoulders with an air of nonchalance he doesn’t possess. His eyes are on his ceiling, on the holographic glow-in-the-dark galaxy open above his head as he tells Phichit, “There’s nothing wrong.”

“As if,” Phichit snorts. “You have that lovesick look in your eyes again. What were you doing?”

With a sigh that escapes his lips like a windstorm, Yuuri sits up on his bed and props himself up with his hands. One hand immediately fly to his hair to pick at the strands. “I was out picking up ingredients for potions to make later. Minako made me do it. I’ll have moon dust in my hair for weeks, probably.”

“You’ll look cool, though!” Phichit tries to assure him. Yuuri gives him a _look_.

“I’m absolutely going for the old-person-shedding look.”

The burst of laughter that spills from Phichit is like solar flares that warm Yuuri up, and it’s contagious, too. It gets him to smile.

When there’s a split-second lull afterwards, Yuuri speaks again, telling Phichit what’s on his mind. Otherwise he’ll find out eventually, pester Yuuri for days until Yuuri says what’s bugging him if Yuuri doesn’t state that it’s something he doesn’t want to talk about. 

He bites at his bottom lip, a nervous habit since childhood that he never quite kicked. “I was thinking about the future again. I was thinking…nothing seems to be going right at the moment.”

“Did you get another rejection?” Phichit doesn’t waste time asking. When Yuuri forlornly nods his head, Phichit’s face schools into something neutral as he tries not to give away the fact that he’s worry personified, because he knows that Yuuri hates to be pitied. And Yuuri appreciates him to the twin moons and back for it.

Yuuri curls in on himself, rests his heavy head filled with toxic cadmium thoughts onto his knees, and mumbles into the skin, “No one wants someone with chaos magic _near_ them. They’re treating me like a ticking time bomb that hasn’t even been built yet.”

“That’s vobshit,” Phichit says. He looks angry _for_ Yuuri. At this point, Yuuri’s resigned himself to his fate, received so many letters filled with sadness and crushed hopes that he doesn’t know what anger feels like anymore. He guesses he can’t really blame them; given the chance, in another timeline, Yuuri might not want to be near someone with chaos magic either.

But Phichit doesn’t think so. The ranting is already starting at full force, his whirlwind words, knocking Yuuri off his rear and onto the bedsheets again. “You spent so long controlling it though! And like, yeah, you might not be great at it yet, but you’re learning everyday. You’re super stellar, Yuuri! Those schools don’t know what they’re missing out on,” he finishes with a decisive huff. His nostrils are _flaring_. Yuuri bites his lips to keep from laughing.

“I’ll figure something out. I’ll get to space one way or another.”

“You _could_ pick up a whole new identity and become a totally new person. Don’t tell anyone what your gift is.”

“Phichit—” Yuuri rolls his eyes.

“No, hear me out. The only good jobs out there that’ll allow you to get to space besides something scientific is privateer, space ambassador, and all those other jobs that just exist to cater to the rich—which is _bad_ , my mom hates going to work, would not recommend—”

“I don’t want to do any of those things,” Yuuri’s lips from a little moue as he looks at Phichit with a deadpan expression. “I wanted to do something interesting. Like xenobiology. Or something.”

“How about a suit engineer? Interstellar flight attendant? That second one means having to deal with snotty rich idiots, though,” Phichit scrunches his nose up at the thought of it. He’s _really_ not fond of those types of people, Yuuri knows. 

“There’s always the illegal option,” Yuuri shrugs, hand waving in the air flippantly. “I could run an illegal cartel. Deal in trading stardust from white dwarfs.”

Phichit _gasps_ , sitting up from his place in his room, and Yuuri blinks, alarmed, because that was a _joke_. “Your chaos magic would be _perfect_ for that!”

“Phichit, no!” Yuuri sputters.

He cackles on the other end, hand hovering over his mouth like he’s trying to contain the laughter, but it’s too colossal to be held down. 

“The look on your face was _priceless_.”

Yuuri can do nothing but pout and cross his arms like a child. 

“But seriously,” Phichit says once the last of his mirth trickles from his mouth. “You’ve been creating potions and all as a side thing. And Minako’s been teaching you all about it, right? You should do that!” His hands flap like a baby sea bird. “Something like that!”

“I _could_ be a healer,” Yuuri muses, looking up at his makeshift galaxy ceiling again. He’s been entertaining the thought in passing for months now, but it never really occurred to him that this is something he can feasibly pursue. It would be nice, he thinks, to have something to spite the destruction the universe says he’s fated to cause. Screw what the universe thinks, or what’s written in the constellations. He can become something more than what he’s meant to be.

But…

“I’ve never heard of a space travelling healer. Minus the high profile ones that work for the—”

“Snooty rich idiots.”

“Right.”

“Who cares! If it’s you, Yuuri, you could definitely do it. I believe in you seven-hundred percent.”

Yuuri looks at him, unconvinced. 

“Okay, so here’s what you do,” Phichit chimes again, leaning forward into the screen like he’s spilling government secrets directly into Yuuri’s lap. “You become a small time healer who advertises his services as the best across that side of the solar system, and as your clientele grows in size and income, you jack up your prices to something bigger than a supernova. Save up the money, close your business, and spend the rest of your life touring the stars with yours truly!”

Yuuri places a hand over his hand to hide the smile that’s forming there. “Why do I have to take you?”

“Why?” Phichit scoffs like it’s obvious. “I’m gonna be the galaxy’s best alchemist and provide you with all the stardust you need! You don’t have to spend a cent on importing any. A very good deal, if you ask me.”

Any attempt to stop his giggles from escaping is futile after that. He laughs and laughs and _laughs_ and feels the lightness of sunbeams in his chest. Phichit never fails to make him forget about his worries, if only for a little while.

“I’ll become a healer then,” Yuuri says with faux-severity that’s entirely unconvincing with the smile still splayed across his lips. “And I’ll make you my personal alchemist stardust supplier.”

“We’ll be unstoppable!” Phichit exclaims, limbs reaching for the sky in all his childlike excitement.

The familiar ache he has in his chest is still there; it never, ever goes away. But as he looks pass Phichit through this teal, translucent screen, at the stars reflecting back at him on his ceiling, he can hear his lifetime wish echoing in his ears. Someday, somehow, he’ll get there.

“We’ll reach the stars.”

✂ 

There’s a spectacle outside when Yuuri wakes up one fine summer morning, the gentle breeze pouring through his window sill and washing over his face like a steam. He expected to wake up pleasantly—it’s his day off, and he planned to sleep till the sun dips over the horizon—but there’s a sudden burst of sound that crashes in a cacophony into his ears and makes him sit up lightning fast.

His eyes are still drooping as he languidly slides out of his bed and makes his way to the window. It takes far longer than it should to get the thing up—his arms are the consistency of jello and his hands are still asleep—but he manages. Then he pauses, because something isn’t right.

It’s dark outside. Like the moons’ shadows have eclipsed over this side of the city, only the shadow doesn’t stretch across the fields like it should and the next lunar phenomena isn’t due for another two hundred days.

The noises he heard earlier must be coming from the people gathered along the streets in a crowd, staring up at whatever it is that’s blocking the sun, pointing fingers and muttering words that sound like nothing to Yuuri from this distance. But he can see the words written clearly on their faces, etched into the rise of their brows and the curls of their mouths; there’s something excited going on, and no one can tear their attentions away.

Yuuri is wide awake now, and he’s a little hurried in his morning routine as he grabs something to eat and changes into something suitable before walking to his front door. He makes it about three steps outside before he’s crashing into the familiar face of a friend.

“Guang-hong?” Yuuri startles, placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder so he doesn’t tip over. He’s the second clumsiest person Yuuri knows, next to himself. He’ll trip over rocks that are several meters away preemptively. 

“Yuuri! Come quick!” Guang-hong says sans a greeting. 

He barely has time to utter _what’s going on_ when Guang-hong grabs him by the hand and starts tugging him along the hallway, down the escalators, and out onto the crowded streets below. 

Yuuri looks up, at the shadow that’s shrouded them—he tightens his hold on Guang-hong. 

That’s a spaceship.

A really, really massive spaceship.

With his eyebrows knitted together, Yuuri looks at the back of Guang-hong’s head, at the Seilostian residents here, packed like stiningales, then up again, at the giant mechanical thing of a vessel that’s blocking out their sky like it belongs there. 

Yuuri makes the connection that whatever reason Guang-hong has for corral him out of his apartment and into the direction of the healing clinic on his off day must have something to do with this. Something like apprehension curls in his stomach, makes it turn and writhe as his mind thinks up a million worst case scenarios. 

Guang-hong all but crashes through the door of the clinic like a comet with Yuuri riding on his tail, and he hastily walks to the storage room where Minako keeps her jars of ingredients and all the extra devices she needs to work. While Guang-hong works to read labels and dump them into the nearest empty hover crate, Yuuri clears his throat to ask him what the heck is going on.

“What the heck is going on?”

“Hm?” Guang-hong whips around in a frenzy like he forgot Yuuri was even there at all. “Oh! This spaceship appeared out of nowhere earlier—you already saw it, right?—and they’ve got hurt crew members so they came to the nearest planet for assistance.”

“Is Minako okay…?” Yuuri questions. He noticed that the building was completely deserted of people, Minako nowhere in sight.

“Oh, she wasn’t abducted or anything. She’s up there! It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever _seen_ , Yuuri, it’s the size of a starscraper in there,” his eyes are shining in this dreamy way like he’s seen the cosmos. “I came down here to get you because Minako needed some help. And, well, I can’t really provide any yet…”

Yuuri shakes his head dismissively. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” So much for his day off. But this _is_ an exciting change of pace, so Yuuri isn’t going to complain. 

He helps Guang-hong push the crate out onto the street, watches him pull out little device the size of his finger from his pocket, hears him tell it, “We’re ready!”

“Wait a minute,” Yuuri blinks, looking up at the ship with wide, curious eyes. “How are we getting up there? Where’s the—” He twirls in place. “There’s no, y’know, stairs?”

“Brace yourself,” is all Guang-hong says in cryptic warning, curling his small hand around Yuuri’s hand again. With panicked fingers, Yuuri grasps the crate in time to feel a weird, tingling sensation that starts at his head and rushes down to his feet, and his vision is bright lights and blurred until it dissipates and suddenly, they’re on metallic flooring that clinks and echoes the moment they’re let go by the magical force that gets them there.

The interior is gorgeous. Like nothing Yuuri’s ever seen in his _life._

It’s pristine, filled with the sterile grays and whites and blues and greens of whirry machinery that fill the space with white noise. There’s lighting along this hall Guang-hong leads him down that’s made of harvested starlight and something else that isn’t of Yuuri’s home planet. He wants to sit down and study it, get his knowledge hungry hands on it and figure out what make up the parts.

But he has no time to wonder and marvel some more as he’s pulled into the ship’s deck, looking pass the people milling around and out of the open floor to ceiling windows—

He holds his breath around a gasp, eyes wide with the latent excitement that feels like it’ll erupt from his chest any second now.

Because they’re in space. _Space. **Space!**_ At the edges of his planet. Higher than any starscraper could ever hope to be.

He’s never seen the stars so clearly.

“Yuuri!” A voice calls, snapping him right out of his reverie and back down to reality. It’s Minako, tending to someone in one of the several seats laid out on the deck. Yuuri walks over and winces when he spots the nasty burn that’s torn through their clothing. It’s glowing an unnatural orange; it must be the work of magic. 

“Good, you’re here,” Minako says to them. She uses her magic to coax the hover crate towards her and rummages its contents for something she needs. “Yuuri, I need you to go to the bay to treat someone for Frost Bright.” Then, to the thin man next to her with the hair that drops from his face like a sheer cliff, she says, “Take him there, please.”

There’s always something amazing in the way Minako speaks, unapologetic and brazen. She commands this ship like _she’s_ the captain.

The man gestures for Yuuri to follow, and Minako is pushing the crate at Yuuri, but Yuuri pauses when her words finally sink and and it _dawns_ on him what she’s asking. “Did you say _Frost Bright?_ ” 

Minako nods her head. “I know you can do it. You’ve been conjuring new potions for rare ailments for years. Don’t think I never took notice,” she reveals, eyebrow raised in a way that doesn’t leave room for protests.

Yuuri bites down on his tongue. He wants to say that he’s never tested them out on actual, living, breathing, moving people before. There’s a good chance they’ll be _none_ of those things should Yuuri go pouring his test concoctions on their wounds like seasoning on food.

“Go, Yuuri.”

He sighs, shoulders slumped a little in acquience. With dragging feet, he follows Mystery Crewman to the bay. The room is a little less of a marvel compared the deck, with the same metallic panels that lines every inch of it. There’s shelves, though, so Yuuri plops the crate there to rest.

“Are you the healer? Yuuri Katsuki?”

The squeal sound Yuuri makes just then is beyond embarrassing. It rips from his throat like an unwarranted blemish and hangs in the air between him and the man he didn’t realize was in the room. 

And he’s—he’s—

Yuuri feels like he’s having a religious experience. Like he’s gone to heaven and back. Like he’s staring directly into the face of a star itself.

This man belongs on the _moon_.

His perfect face cracks the nebulous illusion Yuuri falls under when he raises a perfectly manicured brow questioningly, and Yuuri stammers and stutters, tripping over his words like he doesn’t know his mouth works, clears his throat before he manages to croak out a sentence in response to this perfectly perfect man.

“Y-yes.”

“I’m Viktor Nikiforov, the captain of G.S.S. Umbra,” he holds out a hand for Yuuri to take, and Yuuri feels rooted to the spot. He doesn’t know how his whole body works anymore.

Viktor seems phased by this, concern etched into his face as he not-so-smoothly stuffs his hand behind his back in an awkward, jerky way. He clears his throat. It effectively jolts some electricity into Yuuri’s halted brain.

“Um!” Yuuri stands up straight and turns back to the crate, pulling out the things he needs to whip up the potion— _thallow bush and stardust and flux crystal shards and tons and tons of fireberries_ —and he address the man again—the _captain_ , _Viktor Nikiforov_ —with his back turned. Because it’s easier. “Are you the one with Frost Bright?”

“Oh, no, that would be my right hand Christophe Giacometti.”

“Hello,” another voice an octave deeper says. Yuuri glances over his shoulder, eyes catching a second too long on the spill of Viktor Nikiforov’s silver hair as it rests in rivulets over his shoulders, then peers at Christophe Giacometti laying on the cot he didn’t realize was there before. He has a pained smile on his face as he cradles one hand to his chest. That’s definitely the face of someone who’s suffering from Frost Bright.

Yuuri must be out of it to completely miss two entire, fully grown men as he walked in, but somehow, he managed to do exactly that.

“Hello,” Yuuri greets them both. He works to remove the items from their jars and measure them into the glass bowl that Guang-hong bought along.

“Not much for words, hm?” Christophe says airly.

“Sorry. This needs some concentration. It’s my first time using this on a person,” Yuuri says, like an _idiot_. He wishes he didn’t have a mouth at all in that moment. It must be the lack of a full eight hours of sleep that’s getting to him now, Yuuri reasons. He’s all frazzled, and he’s standing on an alien ship for the first time in his life, and Minako expects him to use a cure on something he’s only ever tested on plants— 

“Are you...certain this will work?” Viktor Nikiforov questions with a voice that Yuuri can get lost in. 

Yuuri gulps and grips a jar harder than necessary. “One-hundred percent positive.”

With his red mixture in hand, he turns to them again, and looks at Viktor Nikiforov, and it’s difficult, because it’s like looking directly into the sun. His heart is rushing blood to his cheeks, spewing it all over the floors. 

“Do you have gauze?”

“Ah, of course.” Viktor brushes pass him to retrieve it. Yuuri has to stand there as Christophe appraises him until the captain returns with it.

Hand held out, Yuuri watches as Viktor presses the gauze into his palms and—

there’s a sudden _zap_ that startles the bowl right out of Yuuri’s hand; the ground shakes when it crashes to the floor. There’s red _everywhere_. 

Dread seeps into his bones like an old companion.

“What in the world was _that_?” Viktor asks. And he doesn’t sound angry like Yuuri expects him to. There’s wonder in his tone as he looks from the ground to his hand, from Christophe to Yuuri. Rinse and repeat.

“I’m sorry!” Yuuri fumbles to pick the uncracked bowl up—bless minako and her foresight to charm them with a sturdy spell—eyes darting around the room for something to clean the mess up. He’s sweating, hands growing clammy from the pressure that’s shrinking the room. 

“Was that chaos magic?”

Yuuri stiffens, holds his breath like he expects something else to go wrong should he let the air from his lungs go. “I swear I can control it.”

Viktor Nikiforov looks at him with doubt. And it’s a look that Yuuri recognizes, mirrored across each and every face he’s sat in front of when they read through his files, glass eyes on glass screens. He can always tell when they’ve reached the words (“ _Type: Destruction”_ ) because they stare at him like Viktor is staring at him now, like he’ll ruin something beyond repair if he so much as looks in their direction. Every single time.

“...Most of the time,” he mumbles, peering down at the floor. He sees his reflection there, his face hard-set, not allowing any of the trepidation and dread and years and years of sadness to reach the surface for these strangers to see.

“I’ve never met someone with chaos magic before. And you’re a healer?”

“Yes,” Yuuri answers, stilted, raising to his feet and setting the bowl down on the counter. “You need to go right now.” Without sparing a moment’s thought, he takes Viktor’s arm, turns him around, and pushes at his broad back in the direction of the doorway. Pointedly ignores the electric bells thrumming through his fingertips. His heart won’t stop making a racket in his ears.

“But wait! The—on the floor—let me provide some assistance—”

“I need to concentrate! No distractions, sorry!” Viktor turns around to face Yuuri when he’s over the threshold, but before he can get another word in, Yuuri taps a glowing panel next to the door frame. It shuts the door _and_ the lights in the room.

“Um.”

“Second button on the right,” Christophe wheeze-laughs. He groans a little in pain.

Once the lights are turned on again, Yuuri uses two spare bowls to scoop up the wayward potion from the floor, then he sets to work creating a new one.

Christophe hums. There’s amusement dripping from his throat.

“The spark in this room was _palpable._ ”

Yuuri takes the gauze in hand, smeared with the slow-healing cure for Frost Bright, and wraps it around Christophe’s wound with more force than necessary. He bats his eyes innocently when Christophe clenches his teeth in agony as the fireberries burn away at the frost.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Giacometti.”

 

When all’s said and done, Yuuri briskly walks out of the bay and into the deck, eyes burning holes into the floor as he goes. He doesn’t want to take any chances in seeing _him_ again. Doesn’t want to see the reflection of apprehension and doubt and thinly-veiled antipathy staring back at his face.

He asks to get beamed down to Seiloste as soon as he reaches Minako. 

Later, Yuuri watches from down on the ground as the spaceship warps away. That’s the last Yuuri sees of space, of the stars he loves so dearly, of Viktor Nikiforov, captain of the G.S.S. Umbra, who has the uncanny ability to make Yuuri’s practiced control of his magic unravel like shoddy twine.

✂ 

Until it isn’t.

Yuuri routinely checks his mail on an autumn afternoon, eons worth of exhaustion living in his bones from a full day at the clinic. He’s perched on his windowsill seat as he scrolls through his messages with a listlessness and a mundane monotony that he’s grown used to by now.

_Spam._

_Spam._

_Rejection._

_Interview._

_Spam._

He stops.

Eyes zeroing in on something that’s not familiar. Something that breaks the monotony, a splash of color within the grayscale ennui that is his very existence here on the ground.

_**Your assistance is needed amongst the stars.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to make this a sort of one shot as a prelude to the full thing, but because of who I am as a person, I didn't do that. so we're here now ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I don't expect this to get too long (famous last words) but nevertheless I'm super excited to delve into this wild, magical word full of astral sorcery!! not to be confused with that minecraft thing because I looked up the phrase just to see what would come up and it was all minecraft SOB
> 
>  
> 
> big thank you to [ADreamingSongbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADreamingSongbird) for beta-reading this ♥♥

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: [@hinatella](https://twitter.com/hinatella)  
> tumblr: @[hinatella](http://hinatella.tumblr.com/)


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